There is a new feature of the blog (or rather: connected with the blog) that I hope you like. It is the brainchild of a blog member, John Mueller, who not only conceived of the idea but is doing every single bit of work for it. It involves a weekly podcast in which John reads two posts that have previously appeared on the blog, some of recent vintage and some archived, often from long ago. It is called the Bart Ehrman Blog Podcast.

John has volunteered to create, manage, finance, and voice the Podcasts each week. He made an offer that was difficult for me to refuse (namely: he would do it for free). While some (many? all?) of you would probably prefer to hear my voice read my own stuff, unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day and only so many things I can do. So the ball is completely in John’s court.

The duration of each Podcast will be roughly 15 to 20 minutes.

I hope you will share this feature with everybody you know and that everybody you know will then share it with everybody they know and everybody…well…you get the point. There is a link to it on the member’s landing page, and you can also download episodes or subscribe to it at iTunes, GooglePlay, and Stitcher. Just search for “Ehrman Blog.”

The purpose of the Podcast is to bring greater awareness to the blog, which will hopefully increase membership, which will then bring in more money for charities, which will then help more people struggling with hunger and homelessness, which will then make the world a happier place. Wouldn’t that be nice?

If it turns out that the Podcast hurts rather than helps membership, we will consider what to do next. But for now, many, many thanks to John. And I hope you enjoy the podcast! Remember, let others know as well!

Bart – I’m not sure this idea will go over well. I personally wouldn’t listen to someone else read your posts – especially ones that have already been posted.

May I suggest using either short video or audio excerpts from your many lectures or debates related to specific subjects as podcast content. And because you have limited time, you could record a short introduction to each podcast – this will make the podcast more “current” and enticing to the listeners.

It sounds like John has the technical ability to do something like this.

Many thanks to John! The only thing that would make it better is if you were on the Podcast, too, and you had a Q and A segment for your listeners. Great for us fans, but another burden on your already amazing workload.

Someone else with the same idea. Of course you wouldn’t have to do it live, since John has all the skills you could pre-record it, too. I can also see you as a late-night TV host, competing with Jimmy Fallon, et al.

Personally, I prefer to read. When I read, I can start and stop, giving myself time to think about what I am reading. Nevertheless, I hope the Podcast does increase membership and thus the amount of money for charity.

This is great news for me Bart! My eyes are getting old (like the rest of me) and reading is often too difficult for more than a few sentences so I was actually considering even dropping my membership.
With a podcast I’ll definitely keep subscribing now. How cool, I’ve been hoping this would be possible but sure didn’t think it would happen. I even read your books and courses via Audible.
Thanks!

Thanks for not refusing the offer, I was not looking forward to doing what I had prepared to do next had you said no. Saves me a trip to North Carolina. Seriously, many thanks, and I look forward to reading all feedback, comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms, and non-constructive criticisms (which many times are my favorites and not just because they are almost always the most entertaining). I want the podcast to be the best it can possibly be and serve its intended purpose of increasing membership to your blog.

Adobe is working on voice mimicking software. Not sure when it will be available for commercial use or how expensive it will be, but basically you record 20 minutes of Bart’s voice (easily taken from a lecture) then apply it to the post. The software will speak the post in his voice.

I believe you’ve said that the critical historian need not deny that miracles, such as Jesus’s resurrection, really happened. Rather, the historian, as historian, cannot affirm such miracles based on historical evidence. However, treating prophecies as evidence of when, for example, Daniel 7-12 was written, ie, after the events prophesied had already taken place, implicitly denies the supernatural explanation, ie, divine inspiration of those prophecies before the events occurred.

I agree it’s valid for the historian to ignore supernatural explanations, even if it implicitly denies them. But I would say that the possibility of supernatural explanations can validly be part of a theological/philosophical discussion. However, when the historian has already denied the supernatural explanation, this denial can inappropriately “leak” into the philosophical/theological debate and beg the question.

Finally, from a theological/philosophical standpoint, the very specificity of the prophecies is evidence that they are divinely inspired. A purely human prediction could never be that detailed.

It’s not a matter of affirming a miracle happened. Historians *can* do that, as human beings. It’s a matter of establishing historical grounds for thinking a miracle happened, which (like it or not!) (some people like it and a lot of people don’t!) is not possible given the limits of the historical method. The historical method also can’t generate the answer to a linear equation, work out the laws of physics, or establish whether a poem is beautiful. There are lots of things simply not in its purview. And miracle is one of them!

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that there’s a difference between it being not possible to establish historical evidence for thinking a miracle happened and it being possible to establish historical evidence for thinking that a miracle did not in fact happen. With the resurrection the historian, as a Christian, can still affirm the Resurrection. But with Daniel 7-12, the historian, as a Christian, cannot affirm that there was a divinely inspired prophecy that was written before the predicted events actually occurred. It’s not possible because the historian would be affirming something as a Christian that s/he also denies as an historian. By using the purported prophecy as critical evidence to establish that Daniel 7-12 was written after the events occurred, the historian is denying that it was a divinely inspired prophecy.

In a recent post, you referred to “fundamentalist and conservative evangelical schools that do not engage in critical scholarship.” The Associated Press Stylebook says:

Fundamentalist: The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. In recent years, however, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians. In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.

Long story. But here’s a short answer. When I was at Moody we had no qualms about using the term for ourselves. We subscribed to the “fundamentals” of the faith. But in the forty years since then, things have changed. Today it appears that a fundamentalist is always that radical, narrow minded Christian who is to the right of you, wherever you yourself happen to be standing on the spectrum. That’s why I almost always qualify my statement by including “fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals” when talking about a particular perspective or stance.

Long story. I’ve never in my life, to my recollection, recommended a Wikipedia article, but this isn’t bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism The seven-dispensation system that it notes is pretty much what I subscribed to when I was a big fan of the Scofield Reference Bible, back in the day.

Very OT: I looked at an episode of “Dateline NBC” Friday night. Part of the story involved a young woman, with weird religious ideas, having harassed her ex-husband with e-mails in which she claimed to be “Lilith, fis first wife and true love,” while his new wife was the deceitful “Eve.” (She later said she’d been suffering from PSTD – the “traumatic stress” having been caused by the failed marriage.)

I’d heard of Lilith before. I remember this part of a poem, though I’m not sure who the author was:

Of Adam’s first wife Lilith, it was told –
The witch he loved before the gift of Eve –
That ‘ere the serpent’s, her tongue did deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, perhaps?

Of course, I don’t believe any of those characters really existed. But I am curious. I’m fairly sure Lilith isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Where does the story come from? And am I correct in thinking the poet had it right, that Lilith was supposed to be “bad,” and Eve “good”?

I really like the podcast as it means I can listen on long car journeys. But please could you ask John to limit himself to one commercial for the blog per podcast? Currently he does it three times – once at the start, once between the two readings, and once at the end. And it’s not a short thing, it’s several sentences long. Since I’m already a paying member, it’s getting a bit tiresome….

There’s an intro for the podcast that’s 2 minutes followed by the reading, then the narrator closes it out with another pitch for the blog. Then there’s what you yourself write on the post asking people to join.

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